


Darkness Inescapable

by Aipilosse



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Faramir was not the only person who dreamed of the great dark wave, Gen, Númenor, briefest mention of Celebrían
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28272774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aipilosse/pseuds/Aipilosse
Summary: Elrond dreams of Númenor.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020





	Darkness Inescapable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaf/gifts).



Elrond gazed down at his feet. The road he was walking on was perfectly even, each stone fit exactly the edge of its neighbor. A cart that was pulled along this road would feel as smooth as a boat rowed out in a placid pond. 

As he walked, he lifted his eyes to the magnificence around him. Marble buildings rose around him, pillars supporting lofty roofs, and domes built upon domes. The stone was gleaming white, swirling pink, and cloudbursts of green and blue.

His feet were drawn inexorably forward, up the hill that rose before him. Around him men, women, and children thronged, going about their daily business, laughing, arguing, and gesturing in the warm sunlit streets. It was utterly silent. 

The roof of the temple ahead gleamed silver, and smoke issued from its peak. The wind was picking up, scattering the thick smoke from the temple. The banners and flags hanging from the buildings around began to snap in the wind, unfurling to show silver stars on a black background. 

At the top of the steps, Elrond stopped to study the tomb in front of him. For a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he didn’t think the tomb belonged there. The star carved upon it was a different style than those on the flags around them, and the stonework seemed more ancient than the unworn edges on the temple before him. He became aware of a distant roaring somewhere to the west. 

_ I have heard that sound before _ , he thought, but he couldn’t place it, nor could he answer why it filled him with fear. 

He remained standing, one hand on the tomb, trying to decide if he wanted to enter. Someone was waiting for him inside, someone he knew very well. 

“Have we not had enough of each other?” Elrond said aloud.

Delaying the decision, he turned and looked out from the hill he was standing on. The magnificent city stretched before him, and rolling green fields beyond the bounds of the city. In the distance, the gleaming sea beat upon the shore. Towering dark clouds were speeding towards him, born on the ever rising wind. 

He glanced back at the temple; He was still waiting inside. The roof looked black under the darkening skies. When Elrond turned back towards the city, the sea was closer, rushing towards him like the storm. Or was the land running into the sea? 

“This was not how it was supposed to go.” The towering figure stood on the other side of the tomb, His black robes whipping in the wind. 

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Is this how it ends?” The figure was shrinking, now shorter than Elrond. 

“It’s ended already,” Elrond said. “And the end was set in motion long before you came here. They were my brother’s people, and so, in a way, my own. Now again they are my people through my daughter. Will their ending be the same?”

The dark figure next to him was shrinking further. He was saying something, but his voice was lost in the roar of the mountainous sea.

The sea was very close now, swallowing the city below him. The ocean was not rising; rather everything in its path was being sucked below. The rift opened below, blue into black into depths beyond what the mind could comprehend. 

Elrond staggered back, gripping the stone next to him. He thought he had escaped this doom. Foolish. The sea would cover all eventually, the water rising and the bottom falling out of the world. He turned to run into the temple, but it was too late. The sea was sucking at his legs, his feet lifted from the ground, and he was pulled under to join all the other remnants of the First Age and his brother’s people.

He awoke slowly, the black of the cabin around him taking shape, and the inky frozen darkness of the sea receding. His blanket was on the ground. 

Elrond sat up, not wanting to stay in the small room, but knowing that nothing but ocean awaited him outside. He went outside anyway.

The sea stretched out for miles in every direction, but it was not the dark abyss that haunted his dreams. It glittered in the starlight, even waves hitting the ship as they cut through the night. 

A small figure stood along the starboard side, not looking out across the waves, but instead looking down. Elrond joined Frodo at the railing, staring at the dancing water next to the ship.

“Do you ever wonder what’s down there?” Frodo asked.

“Yes,” Elrond answered, thinking about the sunken city that might be below them even now and a sealed tomb that surely was now empty, even of dust. 

“I was just thinking, we travel to Valinor, where the people of legend live. Heroes from before the sun, whose deeds are made into a thousand songs.” Frodo, himself already the hero of many songs, looked up from the water and craned his neck to gaze at Eärendil as the star made its way across the heavens.

“But it seems to me the sea could tell just as many stories. More lies beneath these waves than ever was brought back to the Blessed Realm.”

“It lives on still among those who witnessed the deeds,” Elrond said, thinking of the many dead that he was witness to.

“Right, sometimes it's easy to forget that we have eye witnesses!” Frodo said. He was beginning to sound excited, the pensive air that had held him for years already beginning to dispel. 

“‘Our great talent is in memory,” Elrond said, as much a reassurance to himself as it was a fact for Frodo.

“In some ways, that sounds lovely. I needed to leave Middle-Earth, but thinking how the memories of the Shire will fade along with the faces and voices of those dear to me brings me great sadness.” For a moment, Elrond was pulled out of his grief as he thought of all Frodo was losing. “But it seems to me that a great talent for memory could also be a heavy burden,” Frodo continued. 

“I think those of us Eldar in Middle Earth tend to regret rather than to joy. I do not know if it is the same in Valinor.”

“It shall be a new adventure for both of us,” said Frodo. He didn’t try to cheer Elrond any further, but remained by his side, looking out over the water. 

The sea stretched out before him, the unfathomable depths hidden by the foam, but Elrond could not stop thinking about great distances. Time marched ever forward, separating him from Elros, his life a ribbon that started and ended and now was being pulled farther and farther away from him as they left the circles of the world. And now the same would happen for Arwen; just as he sped away from her over the sea, the time that held her existence would spin away from him.

He righted his heart away from the pull of the Deep and the tug of the West reemerged, the old mix of fear and longing taking hold again. If Arwen was now the foremother of a dynasty that would turn to shadow again, that was not for him to see. The patterns of rising and falling had worn him down, and though the world still required healing, Aragorn was more than capable of teaching that skill. 

More was waiting for him in Valinor than old heroes and dusty history; Celebrían was waiting for him, and many other friends who had tired of Middle-Earth through the long defeat. Elrond took a deep breath and released it, letting go of the remnants of his dream. It was time for him to be one and whole again after many years split asunder by separation and holding what he could for the last heirs of Númenor. As Eärendil set, Elrond began to think of the reunions to come.


End file.
